


Edges

by Bea_the_Bee



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 02:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6176341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bea_the_Bee/pseuds/Bea_the_Bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat Vantas jumped off of an apartment complex. <br/>Karkat lived. <br/>This is the story of how the hell he survives the mental ward and the guilt of almost killing himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

    My name is Karkat Vantas.

    I jumped off of an apartment complex.

    I lived.

    I sit now at my small wooden desk in the corner of my bedroom at home. Ballpoint pen in hand, I scribble these barely intelligible words onto the blue lines of a piece of paper I tore out of my best friend’s notebook. I don’t know why I started this. I don’t know who would read this or why they would want to read about something so utterly depressing, but here we are. The paper, the pen, the reader and I. Every blood boiling, every tear inducing, every single gut wrenching detail of my story burns holes in the pit of my mind and my skull and tears itself out of my body and onto the page through my fingers.

    I am aware of the consequences of writing these events down. I know perfectly well what might happen if I do so and I am prepared to deal with them. I am ready.

    Let’s begin.


	2. Chapter 2

    I sat on the edge, my legs dangling over the seven story drop. Eyes glazed over and glassy, I stared longingly at the cement. The first meal I’d had in three days was a bottle of expired pain killers. My fingers and toes were numb and the sensation was slowly climbing its way up my appendages. It was soothing and terrifying at the same time, how slow my heart beat was going and how fast my thoughts were racing. I started to kick my feet, the same way I had all those years ago at camp. It had been by a lake and I would go down to the pier every single day just to stick my feet in the water and swing them around. I had run away from the rest of the camp; on the first day one of the cafeteria ladies had mentioned how skinny I was so I disappeared, pitching my tent in the deeper parts of the woods, only coming outside to go down to the abandoned pier and on the last day to leave. I hadn’t eaten the entire time and what had sickened me was that I _enjoyed_ it. Enjoyed the aching gnawing at my stomach, the constant rumble and roar of my body trying to digest nothing. Since that time I had started my habits of not eating anything for weeks at a time, only drinking water or protein shakes. Because I had to keep myself alive for this one moment, didn’t I? Memories like summer camp and school made me sad and happy at the same time. I don’t even know how the human body can do that, but it’s apparently possible.

    I continued to stare at the pavement. At the people obliviously walking by. At the shops all along Main Street, each one bustling with life and happy faces. At the cars driving past. And all of them together to create the most oblivious picture of all, none of them knowing or even caring about the boy who was about to jump. They would all read my name in the morning on the newspapers or find an online article on Facebook. They’d be sad, they’d get upset, they’d go on rants to their own kids about how “important” they were and then move on with their lives. At school I’d already cut off every tie I had left to those precious people. Aradia Megido who had heard the rumors that I had called her a bitch and a faggot. They were true, but the words never held any meaning to me; at least not when I’d called her them. Nepeta Lejion had punched me across the face after I’d kicked her in the shin and punched her in the arm. Hard. She said that I was a bastard and ran away, limping slightly. She has always been so delicate, ever since I first met her. John Egbert was the last one. And all I needed to do was pull up my shirt sleeves. His family has had a long line of suicides and suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. His brother had killed himself a mere year earlier.

    My brain hurt with all of these thoughts and I was keeping my muscles so tightly wound that the scar above my eye started to ache painfully. It always did that when I was too tense; I used it as a natural alarm system to tell me when I needed to relax. But right then, I didn’t give a fuck. I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. I held my arms straight out in front of me and stared at my hands. I couldn’t feel them and I could see the tips turning into a somewhat blueish color due to the extreme cold that was surrounding me. A calming sort of cold though and a calming blue. I don’t know how that was possible but I felt it. Maybe it was the pain meds fucking with my head. Or maybe it was just my messed up brain trying to make up for the lack of panic I was experiencing. Don’t people usually freak out when they’re terrified of heights and are sitting on the edge of a very tall building? My body must’ve felt the need to make me feel something overwhelming, overpowering, overstimulating and incredibly needed. I guess I’m grateful that my last emotion ever is calm. I was so very rarely completely calm in the rest of my life, so at the very end it was nice to get to feel it, at least once.

    I peeked over the edge again and smiled at my destination. I thought about the ordeal the people at the bottom would be forced to experience. Blood covering their clothes. They’d have to go to the dry cleaners, which would bring the workers there great pay but a sickening job; imagine being forced to clean the blood and guts of a teenage girl off of a winter jacket? Gross. The street cleaners would be forced to get to work immediately after my body was taken away. I hope they didn’t throw up because that would be even more of a mess they would have to clean up. I almost laughed. Here I am, about to commit suicide and I’m thinking about what a mess I’ll make.

    I’m jolted out of my thoughts by the sounds of sirens off in the distance. My mom must’ve found my suicide letter. Wasn’t there a song that went pretty much exactly like this? Yes. But the title escaped me, so I smiled lifelessly at the horizon and started humming the tune happily as I recalled my note that I had written nearly months prior. I’d been planning this for two months. And I was finally doing it.

 

_Dear Uncle Kankri,_

_I’m sorry about this. I really am. But I just can’t do this anymore. Any of it. I love you still. I love you very, very much. Please take care of yourself. Don’t drink anymore. I know it hurts, but booze will only make it worse. And don’t sell yourself off to all of those men. Don’t play dumb about anything either. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for and you deserve someone who will really love you._

_To Aradia, Nepeta, and John:_

_Don’t miss me when I’m gone. Don’t blame yourselves either. You’re not to blame. Why do you think I was so fucking awful to you? I didn’t want to hurt you when I did this. You’re all important to me, probably the closest thing to friends I’ve ever had and I still don’t understand how you could purposefully spend your time with someone who has been planning . . . This. For so long._

_Aradia, come out to your parents. They will still love you, I can guarantee. Tell them._

_Nepeta. Sweet, sweet Nepeta. I want you to go to culinary school. I remember you telling me that one time you got wasted that your parents want you to be a doctor, not a baker. Well screw them. Just follow your dreams. Please?_

_And finally, John. What I want from you is not a simple thing that can be accomplished. I want you to promise me you’ll be strong through this. I’m sorry for doing this to you. But I want you to promise me you’ll get better. You’ll get up every day and face it, whether you’re scared or sad or wishing for death. Remember how you made me promise that? Yeah. I wish I could’ve kept it._

_To everyone who’s ever known me, noticed me, talked to me, and exchanged pleasantries with me; don’t you dare cry. You never knew me and never talked to me and never, ever gained the right to cry at my funeral. Only my mom and the truest of my friends have the right to cry. Also, about my funeral; don’t put me in a tux. Bury me six feet under in a t-shirt and jeans. It’s what I want. And on my gravestone, please put “Invisible in life and seen in death.” That’s how most of these go, don’t they?_

_I love you._

_Goodbye._

_-Karkat_

    It was grim and a little longer than it needed to be, but I wanted to cover all the bases, leave no questions unanswered. The gravestone thing was somewhat of a joke, but the casual wear wasn’t. I’d always hated how it was “traditional” for a girl to be buried in a dress and a boy to be buried in a tuxedo. I was hoping to break that one. The sirens were closer now so I took this chance and stood up. I looked down and suddenly got very dizzy. I heard a shriek come from the street and smirked. It was almost cinematic; a woman on the ground screams, “He’s going to jump!” and points at the person on top of the building. They have their arms up and everyone gasps or screams as they jump, plummeting to the doom the camera cannot display to try and keep a normal rating.

I turned around and lifted my arms, stepping backwards onto the top of the ledge. I looked up at the cloudy sky, noticing it had started to snow. And right there, with my arms up like a bird ready to take flight, with my body barely balanced on the edge of an apartment complex, sirens in the distance, people telling me not to jump, my suicide letter and the people closest to me on my mind, I grinned.

    “I’m so very homesick.” I breathed.

    And jumped.


	3. Chapter 3

    There’s something almost surreal about waking up and thinking you’re dead.

    First off, the waking up in itself was terrible. My eyes felt too heavy, my arms and legs felt like someone had strapped them down to whatever uncomfortable thing I was laying on with boulders and each breath I took felt like inhaling chlorine. But I managed to open my eyelids somehow and was met with white. _Huh._ I’d thought to myself. _Could’ve sworn I would’ve been sent to hell._ I blinked a few times with difficulty, trying to clear away the apparently heavy sleep from my eyes, struggling to become aware of the rest of my body and muscles that I still possessed.  
    It started with my fingers. Twitching, jerking movements lead to smooth typing motions. Then the twist of my wrists and the bending of my elbows. That led to me being to lift my arms clear off of the uncomfortable surface that had blankets and sheets like cardboard. My neck was close to the very last part that I found I could move, excusing my torso and legs, since sitting up and walking around would take a few days.

    Stiffly, I took in my surroundings. And when I recognized them, I cried.

    I’m not going to go into the details of how I felt then or the specifics of the days right after that, but let me tell you the entire time was a devastating mixture of crippling sadness and uncontrollable guilt that felt like it was filling me up from the inside out. Or that all of my organs had decided to take ballet and twisted themselves up in their ribbons of regret. I dreaded the moment that someone I knew would come walking through that door.

But instead of the recognizable faces of those whom I loved it was an endless stream of nurses, every twenty minutes or so. It was no surprise to me however; I knew why they kept coming in. I was under the suicide watch. Most were nice to me, a few gave me pitying looks, but the rest were cold, angry almost. They didn’t say a word to me, didn’t ask how I was, didn’t care to ask if I wanted anything to try and rid me of my aching head. They just told me to lay back down as they wrote down my vital signs down on a clipboard and left. I probably wouldn’t have wanted them to care anyways. Why should they care? I didn’t know them and they don’t know me. I’m just another rotten, spoiled teenager who tried to end their own life in vain.

    I was sitting there with all of these thoughts swirling through my head like tennis balls thwacking from one side of my skull to the other when she walked in.

    She wasn’t dressed like the other nurses and it had been a mere ten minutes since the last one had come in. I was confused, but remained silent, simply staring at her, observing her movements as she waltzed to the side of my bed, sending only a sideways glance to the ever growing pile of “get well soon” cards and flowers and balloons that somehow managed to manifest while I slept.

    “Hello. I’m Dr. Dolorosa. How are you doing?” her voice was rough and smooth at the same time, like the sides of a quarter felt. Raspy and calming at the same time. I looked away from her and down to my lap where my hands were clasped together, gripping the blue sterilized blankets with all that I had.

    “I just tried to kill myself; how do you think?” I asked, praying that my voice had some bite to it. I hadn’t spoken a single word in the three days since I had woken up. Add that to the two days I was asleep and it was almost an entire week since I’d last spoken. I gripped the sheets even tighter (if that was even possible at this point) when I realized that the last time I had spoken was when I was on top of that building; when I had believed that those were going to be the last words I ever said.

    She pursed her lips at that. “Well, yes. I suppose I can’t be expecting you to be doing all that great.” She paused. “Have any of the nurses told you what’s going on or-“

    “No.” I interrupted. “I-um. I mean, nobody has really talked to me since I woke up.” I looked up from my hands and strait into her blue eyes in what I knew was a threatening way. “You’re the first.” I added chilly. I wanted to make her realize I wasn’t in the mood to talk about what happened.

    “Ah. I see.” She shifted uncomfortable, avoiding eye contact.

    “Are you a reporter?” I asked, recognizing that the press were probably all over the incident. And what better way to boost publicity than to have an interview with the suicidal teen himself? Maybe she was acting like some of those reporters on the TV shows where they dress up as doctors and sneak around places to get the real scoop.

    “What? Oh. No.” she met my gaze again, but for only a moment before busying herself with digging around in her purse for who knows what. I remember this because of how nervous she had seemed doing it, her hands moving methodically through her oversized soccer-mom bag. “The press have of course covered the incident, but they have been asked to leave you be until you want to speak.” Suddenly the rustle of supplies in the purse ceased and in her hand sat a pen and notepad, one of those yellow ones with the blue lines that cost one dollar for a package of four at Walmart. My eyes widened as my mind caught wind of who she was and what she was doing here.

    “I don’t need a therapist.” I nearly growled at her, crossing my arms stubbornly.

    “Based on what you just did to yourself, I think you do.” She argued, placing the purse back down on the ground by her feet. She suddenly had a more confidant air around her, like she knew I was going to protest the need for a physiatrist and knew exactly what buttons to press so that I would spill all of my secrets to her like a flood. “You don’t have to worry. It’s a mandatory thing that the hospital does for all patients who have attempted suicide.” She said it like the fact that many people have done this before means that I’m supposed to be more comfortable.

    I wasn’t.

    It made me actually quite upset when people tried to comfort me by saying things like, “You’re not alone in this” or “Other people have lived through it, you can too.” I get that they were just trying to encourage me, to convince me to keep on going, but it just didn’t work that way. Not only does everyone’s experience with depression vastly vary, so much that it’s possible no two people with the illness can tell the same story, but it’s just sad that so many people have had to deal with this. I feel like I should be the only one to go through it, nobody else deserves this pain.

    “This first session will be short since we understand that you’re still trying to heal.” Dr. Roseboro continued, crossing one leg over the other and placing the pad on top of them. “The sessions will take place twice every week on Wednesdays and Saturdays from three to four p.m.” She uncapped the pen and wrote one or two things down on the pad already before looking up at me expectantly.

    “I don’t need a therapist.” I repeated, though this time my words were empty of all threats. Just plain words. Monotonous, robotic, whatever words you would like to use to say that I ended the conversation emotionlessly and didn’t speak the entire time.

    It was another two days before I spoke again.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a story that i wrote a while ago and posted to my Wattpad account. I decided to post the first two chapters here, but don't get your hopes too high on an update; I haven't worked on this in about a year and its honestly pretty terrible in my opinion.


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